Read Online The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V S Redick - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert V S Redick
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made him sit apart and called him a lazy fool if he gave a wrong answer (which he rarely did). When his mother complained to the headmaster, the man threw up his hands: “Why blame us? You married that villain!” Suthinia flew into a rage, chased the headmaster from his office to the science hall and beathim with a stuffed marmoset. Then she pulled Pazel from school and dragged him wordlessly home. No other school would take him after the incident, however, and in three weeks she slipped the headmaster a grotesque sum to forget the whole affair.
From that day on they ate smaller meals, and burned less coal on chilly nights. And when he returned to school his classmates greeted him with a song:
He's Pazel Pathkendle, his daddy went bad,
His mother went mad with a mar-mo-set
.
It was enough to make him hope Suthinia would never again feel the need to protect him. But her master plan for her children's safety had not even begun.
Pazel's one advantage was Chadfallow, who still dined with the Pathkendles weekly. The Special Envoy was now the most popular man in Ormael. After the
Grygulv
disaster the mayor of Ormael sent him back to his Emperor to beg for protection. The doctor returned just as a wild rumor of invasion was spreading about the city—none could say how it started—and cheers greeted him as he disembarked in Ormaelport.
“Your plea has reached the Ametrine Throne,” he told the crowd. “You shall hear from the Emperor shortly.”
Pazel could not have found a better champion. Everyone knew that Arqual had fought the Mzithrin to a draw in the Second Sea War. Instead of the Traitor's Son, Pazel was now honorary nephew of the Envoy, the man who would save Ormael. The boy understood little of these matters, but he knew Chadfallow had reversed his fortunes, and loved him for it.
Just this once, moreover, Chadfallow had come with a better gift than grammar books. It was a kite in the shape of a hummingbird, which Pazel strung with fishing twine scavenged in the port and flew from the hilltops above the plum orchards. The kite was his prize toy for several months, until the day a sudden calm plunged it into the sea off Quarrel's Cliff.
Walking home that oddly still evening, Pazel remained a child, sniveling at the loss of a toy. But when he reached the stone house he found the courtyard packed with strangers. Big, sweat-soaked men. Gold helmets, shirts of metal plate, black spears crusted with gore. They were milling beneath his sister's orange tree, snatchingfruit, breaking branches. On their shields was the gold fish-and-dagger symbol of Arqual. Chadfallow's brethren, come at last.
Children who have never known danger can sometimes grasp its essence in a heartbeat. Pazel stood there only an instant. Then he sprinted around the garden wall, climbed the grapevine at the corner, leaped onto the first-floor roof and slipped through his bedroom window.
The soldiers were in the kitchen downstairs, feasting and bellowing. Of his mother and Neda there was no sign. Pazel was barely eleven, but he saw clearly how everything that comprised his life would vanish into those snatching hands, that belching laughter, which were also Arqual: the real Arqual behind the doctor's finery and gifts. He took the skipper's knife his father had left him, and a thumb-sized ivory whale that had been his mother's nursery toy. Lost, he stood by his neatly made bed. He drank the water he had demanded the night before and then disdained, looking at his books and toy soldiers and model ships until the laughter reached the upstairs hall, and the doorknob turned, and Pazel fled.
From the plum orchards he saw the city burning, her great gates thrown down and the Arquali troops cheering from the wall. He saw twelve warships in port, and eight more stalled on the windless bay. The boom of cannon fire rolled up the hills, followed by the barking of dogs, hysterical and forlorn.
They caught him at dawn, quaking among the dew-damp trees. A
From that day on they ate smaller meals, and burned less coal on chilly nights. And when he returned to school his classmates greeted him with a song:
He's Pazel Pathkendle, his daddy went bad,
His mother went mad with a mar-mo-set
.
It was enough to make him hope Suthinia would never again feel the need to protect him. But her master plan for her children's safety had not even begun.
Pazel's one advantage was Chadfallow, who still dined with the Pathkendles weekly. The Special Envoy was now the most popular man in Ormael. After the
Grygulv
disaster the mayor of Ormael sent him back to his Emperor to beg for protection. The doctor returned just as a wild rumor of invasion was spreading about the city—none could say how it started—and cheers greeted him as he disembarked in Ormaelport.
“Your plea has reached the Ametrine Throne,” he told the crowd. “You shall hear from the Emperor shortly.”
Pazel could not have found a better champion. Everyone knew that Arqual had fought the Mzithrin to a draw in the Second Sea War. Instead of the Traitor's Son, Pazel was now honorary nephew of the Envoy, the man who would save Ormael. The boy understood little of these matters, but he knew Chadfallow had reversed his fortunes, and loved him for it.
Just this once, moreover, Chadfallow had come with a better gift than grammar books. It was a kite in the shape of a hummingbird, which Pazel strung with fishing twine scavenged in the port and flew from the hilltops above the plum orchards. The kite was his prize toy for several months, until the day a sudden calm plunged it into the sea off Quarrel's Cliff.
Walking home that oddly still evening, Pazel remained a child, sniveling at the loss of a toy. But when he reached the stone house he found the courtyard packed with strangers. Big, sweat-soaked men. Gold helmets, shirts of metal plate, black spears crusted with gore. They were milling beneath his sister's orange tree, snatchingfruit, breaking branches. On their shields was the gold fish-and-dagger symbol of Arqual. Chadfallow's brethren, come at last.
Children who have never known danger can sometimes grasp its essence in a heartbeat. Pazel stood there only an instant. Then he sprinted around the garden wall, climbed the grapevine at the corner, leaped onto the first-floor roof and slipped through his bedroom window.
The soldiers were in the kitchen downstairs, feasting and bellowing. Of his mother and Neda there was no sign. Pazel was barely eleven, but he saw clearly how everything that comprised his life would vanish into those snatching hands, that belching laughter, which were also Arqual: the real Arqual behind the doctor's finery and gifts. He took the skipper's knife his father had left him, and a thumb-sized ivory whale that had been his mother's nursery toy. Lost, he stood by his neatly made bed. He drank the water he had demanded the night before and then disdained, looking at his books and toy soldiers and model ships until the laughter reached the upstairs hall, and the doorknob turned, and Pazel fled.
From the plum orchards he saw the city burning, her great gates thrown down and the Arquali troops cheering from the wall. He saw twelve warships in port, and eight more stalled on the windless bay. The boom of cannon fire rolled up the hills, followed by the barking of dogs, hysterical and forlorn.
They caught him at dawn, quaking among the dew-damp trees. A
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